I showed my friend, America, my last post with the tips on how to survive a IRL horror movie and the next day, while talking about fanfictions in general, suggested I do one for anime transportations in case it happens in real life. For those writing OC or Reader based fanfics, these will probably help too. 🙂

So here are MY tips on what not to do so you don’t blow your cover:

1) Change your name:

If it’s completely necessary, it’s probably a good idea to change your name. In most fanfictions that I’ve read in the past or even currently and will read in the future, the Reader or the OC gets transported to a universe where all names are mostly Japanese (with Bleach being one of the few exceptions that I know with Chad {depending on version}) and they have names like “Lauren” or “Timothy” or something. That is literally a red flag to the characters and rarely can you pass off the “Oh, my parents were weird” or the “I’m from a different land” phrase to those guys. It’s a giant cliche. So just in case, come up with a name that could fit into most anime and plan to use that as your Anime Name or AniMe for short (LOL). For example, my name – which I know is already hard to pronounce in Japanese for I have to use shi for my Ci in my first name and it comes out weird – begins with a letter C so I have a fanfic where, when my friend and I transported, I chose a name that started with the same letter. So my AniMe would be Chie {CHI-EH} instead of what my actual name would be.

2) Know your timeline:

If you don’t know the timeline all the way through, that’s okay. Sometimes it’s really good to know the timeline of where you’ve been transported so that way you don’t mess up and accidentally say something that hasn’t happened or HAS happened but hasn’t been revealed to everyone that wasn’t involved just yet and ruin everything. Because it’s really awkward to try and come up with an excuse that doesn’t sound completely weak when it comes out of your lips. For example, I’ve recently read a Harry Potter crossover with The Walking Dead and the author really inserted the reveal of magic quite well. Instead of Harry (for the pairing was Harry x Daryl) calmly doing magic in front of the Atlanta group at the very beginning, he had an actual backstory with the Dixon brothers that allowed him to reveal magic that wasn’t too cliche (some pain induced magic while he was unconscious) and only did magic in front of them until later, when Harry was forced to use magic to save the kids and then later explained that Glenn Rhee was a squib whose sisters or his parents were magical so he already knew somewhat about the war and how famous Harry was later on. To sum it up, they knew about the timeline for each, how old each was and figured out a way to keep things in line… Or maybe I completely confused you and did an example that didn’t make sense with the tip. Either way, I got to brag about one of my favourite reads 🙂

3) Don’t digress from the theme:

One of the things I find common in any story that involves Ouran High School Host Club had the Reader or OC wear something that wasn’t even in line with the theme or went completely off the type of story the original was without any warning in the tags or description and made everything confusing. Like the main character of the fic would wear either the boys uniform but with a skirt because it was “specially ordered” or they would wear something that completely didn’t really appeal to the reader (in this case, Me) and so things didn’t feel right. When you go to a universe that involves ninja gear and ninja shoes, don’t wear a stripper outfit and a pair of high top heels. That’s not apart of the code, not even in Boruto (which I dislike immensely by the way) which was, like, a twenty-ish year time skip and now they have screens and stuff everywhere when earlier it took four or eight gigantic batteries to power one tv screen and a camera. If a really happy based anime has all these cutesy or happy outfits, it’s okay to where black or baggy clothes and stuff. Just don’t all of a sudden wear heavy metal spikes all over your body because you want to be appealing to the reader (which half the time isn’t really that cool and it takes too long to explain everything).

4) Create a good back story

One giant thing that connects to tip number 2 is creating a good back story for yourself or your character. It would help if you based most of it off of what’s actually happened in your life when you were in the real world. Like, if you had a dog named Stacey and your mother was a single parent, then use that, just change “Stacey” to something that could fit into the story better. I, personally, don’t think that, in real life, both of your parents were giant douches to you that favoured your little brother more than you so decided to pay more attention onto them than you and because of that you grew up bitter and joined a gang but really you’re the sweetest person known to mankind and everybody in the world loves you because you have a big heart despite the damage done to you as a child because you were molested when you were twelve by your ex-boyfriend who’s still out to get you and finish the job but your three knew boyfriends and your two girlfriends will protect you because they love you so much and don’t need to know your entire past. That was real lengthy right? That’s because that’s what’s commonly seen in new authors and it’s really boring when you read that same back story eighteen times in a row. It’s also really hard to remember so it would be easier just to use what you already know about your life and tweak things enough to make it believable.

5) You can’t be friends with everyone

Everyone wants to be either the bestest of friends or lovers with their favourite characters, even if they deny it. But you won’t always be buddy-buddy with them because their actual personalities will be different from the ones your head has made up from what you already know (in case you haven’t gone deep into writing and tried to be as detailed to their character as possible) or you were transported in a time where they’ve either changed or you’ll never get to see them, no matter how hard you try. One of my favourite Gaara x OC stories is a little one shot where the OC was the girl that every guy wanted and the girl every girl wanted to be but “she only had eyes for him” AKA Gaara. And, of course, she went up to him, flipped her hair, fluttered her lashes, and told him something along the lines of “I love you and we should be together, for I only have eyes for you.” And then Gaara, in the perfect characterization ever (for this was before Shippuden showed up Gaara as Kazekage), said “Sand coffin” just as she was about to give him a hug or a kiss and killed her. It was beautiful. And it shows that that was his character and not even a beautiful face could change his opinion. Which, for his character and an overly used way to be close to him, if you wanted to be close to Gaara, you would have to either know him before his transition into being a “monster” or after Sasuke leaves Konoha.

This was just a small list, for I didn’t have much to work on and I didn’t want to run on too long. If I come up with anything else, I’ll be sure to add a part two 🙂

Link to the HPXTWD story: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6419452/chapters/14695951

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